Year: 2019

Born 16th June, 1743, Adam Smith was one of the greatest minds of the Scottish Enlightenment. He is regarded by many to be the “Father of Economics”, and deservedly so. His book, An Inquiry in the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, published in that miraculous year 1776, set the theoretical foundations of free markets.

Economics is a branch of moral philosophy. Smith’s other book, published in 1759, is The Theory of Moral Sentiments. Here are a few quotes from the two books. Continue reading “Happy Birthday, Adam Smith”

Economics has from its origins been concerned with how an extended order of human interaction comes into existence through a process of variation, winnowing and sifting far surpassing our vision or our capacity to design. Adam Smith was the first to perceive that we have stumbled upon methods of ordering human economic cooperation that exceed the limits of our knowledge and perception. … We are led — for example by the pricing system in market exchange — to do things by circumstances of which we are largely unaware and which produce results that we do not intend. In our economic activities we do not know the needs which we satisfy nor the sources of the things which we get. Almost all of us serve people whom we do not know, and even of whose existence we are ignorant; and we in turn constantly live on the services of other people of whom we know nothing. All this is possible because we stand in a great framework of institutions and traditions – economic, legal, and moral – into which we fit ourselves by obeying certain rules of conduct that we never made, and which we have never understood in the sense in which we understand how the things that we manufacture function.

Modern economics explains how such an extended order can come into being, and how it itself constitutes an information-gathering process, able to call up, and to put to use, widely dispersed information that no central planning agency, let alone any individual, could know as a whole, possess or control. Man’s knowledge, as Smith knew, is dispersed.

[Except from The Fatal Conceit (1988) by F. A. Hayek. pg 14]

Change is not something that arises out of random chance. If the underlying factors that motivate the electorate don’t change, the outcome will be the same. If party A promoted a certain set of policies as a result of a set of constraints, another party B will have to also adopt the same or a very similar set of policies as well. Why? Because the underlying reality is the same. Continue reading “From the archives: The Sacred Ritual of Elections”

As regular readers of this blog know, I believe that cities are the engines of progress. I am bigly into urbanization. I am delighted that Russ Roberts has interviewed urbanist Alain Bertaud of NYU on EconTalk.

I loved listening to that podcast. (I highly recommend Russ’s pocasts.) I am looking forward to reading Bertaud’s book “Order Without Design: How markets shape cities”.

An excerpt from the book by Alain Bertaud below the fold. Continue reading “Cities, Transportation and Labor Market Mobility”

“As per a study by the Federation of Indian Export Organisations, India’s global merchandise exports for 2018 were $324.7 billion, of which $51.4 billion were to the US.” [Source: Donald Trump terminates preferential trade status for India under GSP.]

“China has a $700 billion trade relationship with the U.S., including imports and exports, but it has a $3 trillion trade relationship with the rest of the world.” [Source: Protectionism Is Iatrogenic Government.] Continue reading “India, China and the US trade numbers”

One major premise of public choice theory is “behavioral symmetry”.

People act in their self-interest. They do what they believe will get them the most bang for the buck for themselves and their loved ones. This they do in the private sphere, such as in the supermarket.

Behavioral symmetry posits that when people act in the public sphere — as voters, politicians, bureaucrats — they also act in their self-interest. They don’t get transformed into other-directed, selfless beings capable of discovering what is true, beautiful and act solely in the interest of the “common good.” Continue reading “Public Choice Theory and Behavioral Symmetry”

It’s deja vu all over again, as Yogi Berra observed. We’ve seen this play before. Not once but all throughout human history.

The pendulum swings. Instead of introspection and looking into the mirror, the breast-beating, hand-wringing crowd of ignoramuses can’t — or worse won’t — read the writing on the wall. But that’s par for the course for the leftists and “secularists”, the people that this piece is addressed to.

Five years ago, in May 2014, I had tweeted, “Will @narendramodi be PM for the next 5 years? Absolutely not. He will be PM for the next 15 years. Get used to it.” It was a bold expression of hope that Modi will bring about structural changes in the economy and the governance of India, and that will ensure his continued leadership. Continue reading “With love, to my Leftist, “Secular” Friends”

Nicely done video showing how the top 10 countries with the highest GDP 1960-2017. It’s fascinating to watch the transition of China from being fairly irrelevant to being a world economic power. Note that India (thanks to Nehruvian socialism) is still struggling to be relevant. Do watch the video full-screen mode.

It’s nice to see the transitions as a movie. However I recommend pausing the video at each year and noting the size of each economy. We should note that the data is regarding the GDP, not per capita GDP. So when China’s GDP is smaller than France’s, for example, we have to appreciate that China’s population was 10 times that of France. The gap between par capita GDP in the world is immense.

No, because monster “is too forgiving a word for his depravity.”

Lord Acton’s claim that “great men are almost always bad men”[1] holds broadly for the great leaders (men and women) of the world. I think the larger the nation or country, that tendency to badness in leaders tends to get exaggerated. The US produces some of the worst excesses of the abuse of power since the US is such a powerful nation. One example of a terrible person is Harry S Truman, who became the president of the US upon the death of President Franklin D Roosevelt in April 1945.

Here’s an article by  David S. D’Amato, “Everything Wrong with the Truman Administration“, which asks, “Was Harry Truman one of the worst terrorists of all time?” and answers, “If words mean anything anymore—then absolutely, yes.” Continue reading “Was Truman a Monster? No.”